Bridge On The River Kwai Theme Of

9 September 2017

Bridge On The River Kwai: Subject Of Madness Essay, Research Paper

The Theme of Madness in? The Bridge On The River Kwai?

The Bridge On The River Kwai ( 1957 ) was the most successful war movie of the 1950 & # 8217 ; s. The movie focuses on several conflicts, both an internal and external. It examines the inquiry of where does responsibility and courage terminal and lunacy Begin? The character of the British Colonel Nicholson, played by Alec Guiness, is, from the really start of the film, in a conflict of moralss with Colonel Saito, played by Sessue Hayakawa, the commanding officer of the Nipponese prison cantonment where Nicholson and his work forces are being held captives. Colonel Satio has to take between his ain decease and his honor. The conflict Shears, played by William Holden, faces is an internal 1. He inquiries his beliefs and ethical motives, an in the terminal makes an of import pick as to his worth and responsibility.

The work that is to be done is to construct a span across the Kwai River for the railway linking Bangkok to Rangoon. The Nipponese authorities had ordered Saito to construct this span utilizing the captives in his cantonment. When building becomes less and less productive, Nicholson asks permission to take over supervising of the span, to do it a testimonial to British resourcefulness and efficiency. With an resulting deadline, Saito gives in and even allows Nicholson to hold Nipponese military work forces work on the span. Nicholson becomes so haunted with constructing the span and the constitution of order and military bid that he fails to recognize that by doing such a good span and by working his work forces every bit hard as he does that he is join forcesing with the enemy.

? The fact is, what we & # 8217 ; re making could be construed as, forgive me sir, coaction with the enemy. Possibly even as faithless activity & # 8230 ; Must we work so good. Must we build them a better span than they could hold built for themselves? ?

Nicholson, on the other manus, & # 8220 ; knew & # 8221 ; that it was his responsibility to maintain his work forces as a unit and non allow them go separate persons. He made them construct the really best span they could, maintaining them British soldiers and non Nipponese captives. However, He had subterranean motivations.

? And you wonder, you ask yourself, what the sum sum of your life represents. What difference your being at that place at any clip made to anything. ?

? One twenty-four hours the war will be over. And I hope that the people that use this span in old ages to come will retrieve how it was built and who built it. Not a pack of slaves, but soldiers, British soldiers, Clipton, even in imprisonment. ?

His resolved devotedness to duty drove him huffy. The span was Nicholson & # 8217 ; s trophy, non a tool to maintain the ground forces together. His attachment to his sensed responsibility was his ruin. Had he non been so captive on constructing a good span, he would non hold reacted the manner he did when the find of the explosive alterations was made. It is merely at the terminal, when he sees the speculator detonating device, that he realizes his error, and even though shooting, he falls on the speculator, blowing up the span

Another conflict is that within Colonel Saito. His orders purely say that he is to construct the span by a specific day of the month. He knows that if it is non completed, serious effects will ensue.

Saito: Do you cognize what will go on to me if the span is non built on clip?

Nicholson: I haven & # 8217 ; t the foggiest.

Saito: I & # 8217 ; ll have to kill mys

hob. What would you make if you were me?

In order for the span to be finished, Saito realizes that he must give control of it & # 8217 ; s building to Colonel Nicholson because the British will non listen to him. Finally, when the span is built, disgraced by the fact that it is non his making, Saito prepares to kill himself, but is non given the opportunity because of the ranger onslaught. He sacrificed his honor for his life, and subsequently realised that his life was non deserving populating without honor.

Another conflict takes topographic point within the head of Shears. At the start of the film, he introduces himself as a Captain in the United States Army. When he escapes and after a anguished journey through the jungle, the British Army finds him. Shears is asked to take a mission back into the jungle to destruct the span, which Nicholson & # 8217 ; s work forces had constructed. Upon hearing this and desperate non to return anyplace near the cantonment, Shears admits that he lied about being a Captain and that he was merely a private. Rather than confront a tribunal Martial from the US Army and a long prison term for portraying an officer, he reluctantly joins the British Army ranger squad on the mission to the Kwai River.

? In one sense, you & # 8217 ; re a blame hero for doing an flight through the jungle. But at the same clip, they can & # 8217 ; t really good convey you place and give you the Navy Cross for portraying an officer, can they? I suppose that & # 8217 ; s why they were so happy to manus you over to us. You see? ?

Though he does non desire to travel, he follows his responsibility and returns to the river. When the British officer taking the mission, Major Warden, played by Jack Hawkins, is changeable, instead than give up, Shears literally carries him the remainder of the manner to finish their aim.

? And with you, it & # 8217 ; s merely one thing or the other: & # 8216 ; Destroy a span or destruct yourself. & # 8217 ; This is merely a game, this war. You and that Colonel Nicholson, you & # 8217 ; re two of a sort, loony with bravery. For what? How to decease like a gentleman. How to decease by the regulations when the merely of import thing is how to populate like a human being. I & # 8217 ; m non traveling to go forth you here to decease, Warden, because I don & # 8217 ; t care about your span and I don & # 8217 ; t care about your regulations. If we go on, we go on together. ?

In the climax scene, when Shears has the chance to turn away from the mission, he stays to complete it. Alternatively of concealment, the safe program, he runs out, in full position of the enemy, and is shot in an effort to explode the bombs under the span. He followed his responsibility to his acrimonious terminal.

This film did non hold a character that could truly be considered the good cat or the bad cat. One could reason that Colonel Saito was the bad cat, but was he? He was following his orders. Was Shears the hero? He lied, he ran off, and he tried to acquire out of his work. There is no good cat or bad cat, merely like in existent life. It & # 8217 ; s all in the position of the spectator. Madness, as Clipton, played by James Donald says in the terminal is precisely what it comes down to. With every character being to ravish up in there orders, responsibility and pandemonium of it all, they loss sight of what is truly of import, and affairs to them. The? right thing? or the baronial, sane thing to make, is clouded by the characters emotions, wants, and orders. This is arrant lunacy, and this is what I feel Clipton meant by this statement. That the characters allow it all go to the point of no return.